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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23793988">how do i make love rise in your eyes</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/superoverdramatic/pseuds/superoverdramatic'>superoverdramatic</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>New Amsterdam (TV 2018)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, POV Second Person, Pining, i know the dr episode wasn’t going to be a flevie wedding but who’s going to stop me, this was going to be smutty but then i realised i can't write smut, where are all the dominican republic fics</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-04-23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-04-23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-02 22:47:38</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Not Rated</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,570</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23793988</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/superoverdramatic/pseuds/superoverdramatic</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p><i>It’s almost too easy in the half-darkness to forget what a mess you are creating and just exist. Helen fits perfectly against the lines of your body, made for you in a way that no other woman ever has been.</i><br/> </p><p>Max comes around just a little bit too late.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Max Goodwin/Helen Sharpe, minor Evie Garrison/Floyd Reynolds, minor Helen Sharpe/Cassian Shin</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>105</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>how do i make love rise in your eyes</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>yes, i am still hyperfixating on these two.<br/>yes, i was working on a sharpwin baby fic and realised that no one has written anything about the cancelled finale where they were meant to be going to the DR, so i just did it myself.<br/>yes, i know this would never have happened, and yes, it's another angsty one bc i will stop writing angst when i'm dead.<br/>i'm trying something new with the second person perspective, so i'm curious to know how you all feel about it.</p><p>title from 'my eye' by seinabo sey</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>You find her standing at the edge of the beach with waves licking at her bare feet, a portrait against a sunset that paints her skin in varying shades of gold.</p><p>The rehearsal dinner goes off without a hitch, and everything is lovely, the quaint little resort overlooking the sea, the food that is almost shockingly good, Floyd and Evie all lit up by the strings of lanterns overhead, matching radiant smiles soft under the yellow light, but you haven’t been able to keep your eyes off Helen all evening.</p><p>You’ve always known that she is a beautiful woman—that much is an objective fact. However, tonight she is <em>devastating</em>, lips painted siren red and clad in a form-fitting yellow dress that compliments the tan of her skin, and you suddenly feel uncomfortable in your linen suit, too aware of how plain you look and the sunburnt strip of skin across the bridge of your nose and just how out of your league this woman is.</p><p>It isn’t any wonder, then, that Helen has found something with the new doctor, who is unattached and self-assured and irritatingly handsome, your polar opposite in every way. It is a small mercy, at least, that Cassian didn’t accompany her on this trip.</p><p>You watch Helen like you can’t help it, a wound that you can’t stop yourself from picking at. This pain is worse because you know that it is your own fault.</p><p>You think that maybe once upon a time the two of you were inevitable, back when these <em>feelings</em> were still new, and Georgia was still a barrier between you. But then Georgia died.</p><p>You have told a lot of lies in your life, lies to comfort grieving families and dying patients, lies to your wife and your parents and your friends, white lies and huge, life-altering lies. In your grief and in your guilt, you told yourself that you were not in love with Helen. You used your relationship with Alice to prove that you were not in love with Helen.</p><p>You’ve been nursing one drink all night, tolerance shot in the months since Luna was born, and you barely refrain from throwing the rest of it back to silence the voice in your head that calls you a liar.</p><p>At some point during the speeches, Helen vanishes from the room. Your eyes stray over to where she’s been sitting all night, her spot at the table marked with a place card that reads <em>Bridesmaid</em> in elegant script, but her seat is empty. You try to be discrete even as you scour the room for her, but she’s gone, and it’s irrational to ache for her when she’s probably just in the bathroom, but the way you feel for her has never been rational.</p><p>You tell yourself that you aren’t waiting for her to come back even as you eye the door, time stretching painfully until you can no longer bear it.</p><p>Suddenly, your glass is empty and you’re standing before you have a moment to question what you’re doing, slipping surreptitiously from the room and then from the resort, kicking up sand as you search the beach for her.</p><p>You feel the tension drain from you when you spot Helen standing barefoot in the waves, dress rucked up to her knees, wicked heels in one hand and her flute of champagne in the other. Music drifts softly from the open doors of the hotel behind you into the growing dark, and there’s a small part of you that knows that the two of you shouldn’t be alone right now, in this romantic place with love and fireflies in the air and the low buzz of alcohol emboldening you as you approach her.</p><p>“What are you doing out here?” you ask when you get close enough, and Helen’s shoulders go tight even as she spins at the waist to face you. There’s an easy smile on her lips that doesn’t match the troubled look in her eyes.</p><p>“I could ask you the same thing.”</p><p>You both know that you followed her out here, but only you know why. Helen turns back to the ocean. The sound of it fills the silence between you.</p><p>You wonder idly if she will ever tell you about Cassian, about the embrace between them that she doesn’t know that you witnessed. You haven’t been able to wipe the image of her lips on his from your mind, and it burns at your insides.</p><p>She takes a sip of her drink, and then extends the flute to you in offering. You take it but don’t drink any.</p><p>Maybe it is the cocktail of the scenic view and the innate romance of a wedding, maybe it’s all the months spent desperately pining, maybe it’s that single glass of champagne, but for some reason you open your mouth and say something stupid.</p><p>“You want to know something?” The cowardly part of you hopes that she doesn’t hear you over the rumble of the ocean.</p><p>Your luck isn’t that good, though, and she turns to you with raised eyebrows.</p><p>You focus on the exposed line of her clavicle instead of the inquisitive look on her face. It’s the only way you can muster the courage to get the words out. “I’ve been thinking a lot while we’ve been here about things I regret, mistakes I’ve made, you know?”</p><p>Helen nods, hums in agreement, but doesn’t interrupt, giving you her full attention the way she always does, and in this moment, you let yourself love her.</p><p>You exhale through your nose. “And I’ve been thinking about the one thing I regret most.”</p><p>Helen is still looking at you sympathetically, and you can read in her face that she thinks this is going to become a confession about Georgia, or maybe even Alice.</p><p>“More than anything, I wish I could go back to that night in your office.”</p><p>It takes her a long moment to process or respond, and the best that she can come up with is a confused <em>what?</em>, blinking rapidly, and you know that this is it.</p><p>“If I could go back,” you say, licking at your dry bottom lip, “I wouldn’t have stopped.”</p><p>“Max,” Helen says, huffing out a breath of air, something half-resembling a laugh, but she doesn’t look confident that you are joking.</p><p>“I would do what I’ve wanted to since the day I met you.”</p><p>“Max,” she repeats, and it’s more of a warning this time, a clear sign to stop this train of conversation, but no amount of denial will change what <em>almost, nearly, could have</em> happened.</p><p>“I think about that night all the time,” you whisper to the sea, and the wind carries your secret from your lips.</p><p>“What are you doing?” Helen asks, suddenly rounding on you, and she sounds angry now. “What is this?”</p><p>“Helen-”</p><p>She snatches the champagne glass from between your fingers, holding it close to her. She thinks you have had too much to drink. You don’t think that you’ve had enough.</p><p>You take a step towards her.</p><p>Her reaction is so reminiscent of the last time you did this, eyes going wide, lips parting slightly, but she holds her ground as you move in closer than you did that day, until you are pressed against each other and you are sure that she can feel the thundering of your heart.</p><p>“I wish,” you whisper, head bent low enough that your nose is almost brushing hers, “I wish I had kissed you that day.” Your breath washes across her lips, and you both know exactly which day you’re talking about. “I wish I hadn’t let you walk away.”</p><p>Helen’s eyes are molten gold in the waning light.</p><p>“I wish I could kiss you right now.”</p><p>It’s an offer, a throwing down of the gauntlet. There is no speech that you can think to deliver, no heartfelt confession or desperate plea on the tip of your tongue. Those will come later.</p><p>If Helen wants this, if she is willing to take this risk, all she has to do it close the distance. She is in control here.</p><p>There is a beat where you both just breathe against one another. And then she does. The glass in her hand hits the sand, wetting the hem of your pants.</p><p>You are all sensation at the first touch of her lips, and everything around you seems to just disappear, until there is nothing but the slightly waxy taste of her lipstick under the press of your mouth and the light brush of fingers against the back of your neck as she slides her hand into your hair.</p><p>Your hands go to either side of Helen’s face, holding her like she is something precious, and it is more than just a kiss; this is something huge and powerful that could pull you under until you drown.</p><p>You slant your lips harder against hers, and suddenly the kiss is hurried and needy, and if there were a way for you to physically get closer, you would. Helen’s hand tightens in the hair at the nape of your neck, and she returns the urgency in your kiss with her own.</p><p>Her mouth is demanding, hands hot and burning trails of heat into your skin as she wraps the other one around your wrist where you are still cradling her face.</p><p>You hold her to you and kiss her, and kiss her until there is no breath left in your body. You are both panting hard when you finally separate, and you are only want, only desire, only the desperate urge to pull Helen back into you, but you sense the moment when her senses return, and she stiffens in your grip.</p><p>You let her go when she pulls back, distantly marvelling at the still intact slick of her lipstick. Helen brings a hand up and the tips of her fingers just barely press against her lips.</p><p>“We–” she whispers on a shocked exhale, and then she’s shaking her head, “–we shouldn’t have done that.”</p><p>She starts to back away, starts to run from you, from this. You can’t just watch her walk away after that.</p><p>Your hand flashes up, capturing Helen’s wrist before she can make her escape. “Wait,” you say, throat hurting, and it sounds choked and pathetic.</p><p>She flinches, as if your touch physically burns.</p><p>“Give me one night,” you whisper, and it sounds like begging. “Just give me tonight, and tomorrow I’ll let you go.”</p><p>“Max,” Helen breathes out again, disbelieving.</p><p>“We don’t have to talk about it,” you say, and you don’t even know if this is possible, but you have to try. Even if just for a few hours, you want to know what it is to have her, to wash away the bitter <em>what if</em> that has lingered between the two of you since that night.</p><p>You duck your head down, lips just skimming hers, and she inhales sharply, trembling with it.</p><p>“Just tonight,” you whisper, and her eyes slide shut. You hold still, like she is a wild animal that you are trying not to spook. Your heart beats a tattoo against your ribs. You have never <em>wanted </em>like this before, felt the gnawing pain of it through your entire body.</p><p>“Just tonight,” Helen hums against your lips. It took barely two months for you to want her and almost two years for the two of you to get here, and you don’t know if is possible for you to ever have your fill of her. It doesn’t matter though. You will take whatever you can get, whatever she is prepared to offer.</p><p>The music from the resort is still audible from where you are standing, something slow and melodic, and you slide your fingers to intertwine with hers, bringing them up to your chest and using the leverage to draw Helen into you.</p><p>“Dance with me,” you murmur, already starting to sway, and you can see how hard she swallows even as she lets you tug her closer. Your other hand rests warm and gentle against the silky fabric at her back, thumb tracing small circles into the divots of her spine.</p><p>It’s almost too easy in the half-darkness to forget what a mess you are creating and just exist. Helen fits perfectly against the lines of your body, made for you in a way that no other woman ever has been.</p><p>It’s almost too easy to imagine that you are the ones getting married in the morning. You don’t let that dangerous thought take root though.</p><p>You dance until the music stops and the sun is fully set, but it still isn’t enough. There is a moment, when the moon has long since taken its place in the sky and there is nothing but the sound of waves cresting against the shore, when the two of you stay just as you are, simply looking at each other. You think that you could live in this moment forever.</p><p>But then Helen moves away, and the spell is broken. She takes a silent step back, and then another and another, until she is walking back up the beach. The moon casts a long shadow behind her as she goes, and you don’t know how you can survive with your heart outside your chest like this.</p><p>You drag your terrible, selfish body back to your room, but are too restless to sleep properly. It’s exactly what you were worried about, that when you finally got her in your arms, you wouldn’t know how to let her go. You watch the sun turn the sky lighter hues of blue until it is rising high into the sky again, and you force yourself to get up.</p><p>You accidentally run into Helen on the way out of your room, and it is a knife to the gut when she angles her face away. You want with all your being to profess how you feel, lay yourself at her feet right here, but you made a promise to her and you will keep it.</p><p>This time, you walk away.</p><p>You don’t talk about it when you are standing on either side of the altar as your friends get married, hand in hand under an outdoor pavilion covered in fragrant white flowers, and Floyd grins down at Evie, with matching buds in her hair, and promises her forever.</p><p>You don’t talk about it at the reception, when you dance with one of the bridesmaids, and then another, and then with Evie’s mother and with Lauren, and pretty much everyone but the one person that you want to be dancing with.</p><p>You don’t talk about it two days later when Helen ends up squeezed between you and Lauren in the back of a taxi on your way to the airport, pressed together from shoulder to ankle, and you can barely draw in enough oxygen to constitute a breath.</p><p>You go home and kiss the sweet-smelling crown of your daughter’s head, and you go to work and pretend that everything is normal, and you still accost Helen in the halls and rely heavily on her expertise, and you pretend that it doesn’t almost bring you to your knees when, just a week later, you overhear the nurses gossiping that she is officially dating Dr Shin, and you do not, under any circumstances, talk about it.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>just ignore that this kind of borders on homewrecking okay</p></blockquote></div></div>
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